The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to automated systems and methods of verifying that customer services have been properly provisioned in an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) telephone system.
When a telephone customer signs up for a new Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) service, a multitude of systems must be set and file updates must be made on a number of elements in the Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) system. This process, called provisioning, must occur at the central office or CO, (also called the service switching point or SSP), at the signaling transfer point (STP) and at those network elements where the subscriptions data is stored. Some of these network elements are automated so that the provisioning process can be done through software. In other cases, provisioning must take place manually. Because there are so many devices and human factors involved the provisioning process is error prone. The error rate can be as high as 15 to 20% in the provisioning of a new service. Unfortunately, it is often a customer who detects the error in the provisioning, which may result in diminished customer satisfaction and distrust of the customer""s telephone company.
It would be preferable to reduce the number of errors in provisioning and to decrease the number of times that a customer, rather than a telephone company, finds the errors. Hence a need exists in the art for an automated system for verifying provisioning of AIN services has taken place correctly, and conversely to identify when provisioning has not taken place correctly.
In the disclosed invention, systems and methods are directed to validating that an advanced intelligent network (AIN) service has been properly provisioned. The systems and methods provide that an automated test telephone call is placed to invoke a customer-ordered AIN service. The AIN network elements that have been provisioned to provide the service recognize, based on the calling number, that the call is for testing purposes, and forward the call to a test-designated telephone line. A calling party number field containing service specific data may also be forwarded to the test line. If the appropriate response is received at the test-designated telephone line within a specified time period, the service has been properly provisioned. If no call is received at the designated testing telephone line, it can be concluded that the service has not been properly provisioned and requires further investigation.